


The Plausible Deniability Affair

by glacis



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya, Napoleon, and a THRUSH experimental drug lead to schemes and revelations in the lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Plausible Deniability Affair

_PROLOGUE:_ 

It was a long shot, but THRUSH was expert at estimating the odds, and this particular gamble would have a worthwhile payoff, if they could just pull it off. Angelique was the advance scout, playing a delicate game of truce with the target, and all the pieces fell beautifully into place.

Beginning with the Black Knight.

She watched from the doorway, black scarf disguising her platinum hair, sleek body dressed for disappearance in stark black slacks and sweater. Narrowed eyes followed the urbane figure as he locked the door, set the alarms, looked discreetly in every direction at once (a useful skill for a spy to have, and one he had perfected years before) and walked with deliberate grace toward the corner.

He didn't make it that far.

One quick word hissed into an unobtrusive communicator, and her minions fell into place. Six burly men, strong and quick with it, surrounded Napoleon Solo and closed in on him with silent intent. He fought well, he always did, and four men fell. One would never walk quite right again; shattered kneecaps tended to heal awkwardly. One wouldn't handle a truncheon again for some time; every bone in his right hand was broken. Another stopped breathing altogether; crushed ribs tended to shred lungs like tissue paper. The fourth was lucky; a mere skull fracture that would eventually heal leaving little discernable loss of intelligence. The other two managed to subdue him, and less than five minutes passed from the initial attack until the mop up of the aftermath.

She smiled into the gathering dusk. It was good to have such a wonderfully entertaining enemy. And the session to come in the lab promised to be even more enjoyable.

 

 _ACT ONE : It's A Party and the Gang's All Here_

His head hurt. Come to think on it, which also hurt, so did his neck, his right shoulder, the left side of his ribcage, his stomach, both knees where he'd landed when he'd gone down, and his left hand, which burned from scraping across the concrete.

It was not an altogether promising way to wake up.

Taking a relaxing breath, Solo concentrated on listening. There was much to be learned if the enemy thought one was unconscious. Unfortunately, in order to learn anything, the enemy actually had to be in the same room with one, and preferably spilling secrets like the happy little talkative megalomaniac birds most THRUSH agents turned out to be. This tree was empty.

Not hearing anything beyond the thunder of his own heartbeat in his sore head, he gradually cracked open one eye. As suspected, he was alone. And strapped down. On a table. In a lab. With a rack of strange looking metal devices on a nearby tray, looking a little like a dentist's array just waiting to inflict pain and agony.

Definitely THRUSH.

He wondered how long he'd been out. From the taste in his mouth and the throbbing behind his temples, at least overnight. Hopefully by now Illya would be leading the cavalry in a rescue. It had only been a few months since his last working-over by the dedicated sadists at THRUSH, and he wasn't really in the mood to repeat the experience. Besides the nightmares, the hospital food and the crutches, it was hell on his wardrobe. Before he had a chance to react and feign unconsciousness again, the door swung silently open and his old friend Angelique swayed in.

"Oh, wonderful, darling, you're finally up! I was afraid you weren't ever going to join the party," she cooed at him. He dredged up what he hoped would pass for a flirtatious smile and winked at her.

"You know me, I'd never miss one of your parties." Unless I had fair warning and a head start, he finished in his head but kept behind his teeth. "To what do I owe the honor of this particular fete?" The interest was unforced. If he could get her to crow a little and spill her plans, he'd have at least a small chance at thwarting them. And he lived to thwart THRUSH plans.

"Just a little cocktail our chemists have cooked up, darling. We couldn't leave you out of the fun now, could we?"

Wonderful was the word, all right. Another serum. Great. Scramble his brains a little more and see if there was anything left to put back together when they were done. He hated needles. He manfully held back his sigh and smiled blindingly at her. "What a lovely idea. I'll do my best to be the perfect guest of honor," he offered gallantly, mind busily wiping itself of any important operational details THRUSH might like to get their greedy little claws on. The more confused he could make those details before the drugs were administered, the better chance he'd have of spouting gibberish once they took hold. It had worked more than once. Trying to hide them didn't work at all -- it was rather like trying not to think of a pink elephant -- but mixing them all up often worked a treat.

Mid-thought, and mid-flirtatious by-play, the door burst open unceremoniously. Two patented hulking THRUSH thugs trudged stolidly through, Illya Kuryakin suspended between their beefy bodies like an alley cat dangling between a pair of junkyard dogs. He did not look happy. More resigned than anything, actually. Napoleon closed his eyes and let a tiny sigh escape. So much for that particular cavalry.

"Welcome to the party, Mr. Kuryakin." Angelique sounded torn between pique and delight. It sat well on her.

Solo opened his eyes again to see her advancing on poor cornered Illya. If the Russian had possessed a tail, it would have been thrashing. As it was, his eyes were narrowed distrustfully and he stared up at the taller woman as if expecting her to reach over and bite him. Knowing Angelique as he did, it wasn't too far off the mark.

She reached out with one lacquered claw and ran it delicately along his cheek. Solo didn't actually see a shudder, but he knew it was there. Kuryakin wasn't one to allow casual invasion of his personal space, and Angelique was nothing if not invasive. Before he could think of a witticism to draw her fire, she laughed softly. This time he felt the shudder himself, and saw an answering ripple run through his partner. It wasn't a very nice laugh.

In fact, it made his skin crawl.

"Always so very disapproving, Mr. Kuryakin. So cold and disdainful." She leaned in toward him and he involuntarily flinched back, but she didn't kiss him. Instead she bit him, very gently, on the tip of the nose. "We'll have to see what we can do to … loosen you up a bit." She grinned at him. He didn't appear to appreciate her offer. Pausing in her little tormenting game, she glanced over at the thug on the right. "Is it here yet?"

He gave her a perfectly bovine look of complete incomprehension. Obviously bred for brawn, not brains, and she shrugged, equally obviously not surprised by his lack of knowledge. Waving to a spot on the floor by the table, she patted Kuryakin's shoulder consolingly.

"We'll have to finish this delightful conversation in a little while, my dear. I have to go see to the party favors. Mustn't be such a bad hostess for my two guests, now, must I?"

"Don't hurry on my account," Illya spoke for the first time since being carted into the laboratory. She grinned wickedly at him again, and he settled for raising one brow at her. Then the thugs hefted him into the corner beyond the table and dropped him ungently onto the concrete floor.

With his hands tied behind his back he had to break his fall with his chin, which didn't improve his mood in the least. Napoleon heard at least three decidedly filthy Ukrainian curses spit out in a soft hiss before Illya managed to right himself. By then, Angelique was blowing kisses from the doorway, and the thugs followed her out like the well-trained apes they were.

After the door slid shut behind them, he arched up as high as he could in his bonds and tried to peer down at his partner. "Illya? Are you all right down there?"

"Perfectly fine, Napoleon. Other than a dislocated shoulder and tooth marks on my nose." A scuffling noise told the older agent precisely what his partner was doing, and he began to ramble to cover the sound of escape in progress.

"I don't suppose they've left you any handy dandy toys to help us out in our predicament?" Twisting his wrists and pulling with his ankles wasn't doing any good in loosening the leather straps clamped around his limbs, but he didn't stop working them. He just talked louder, and hoped Illya was less restrained than he was at the moment. "An extendo knife from your tie tack? A miniaturized blowtorch in your shirt button? How about a handsaw from the heel of your shoe?" Under the imaginative commentary, he heard a small, pleased grunt, followed by a wriggle he knew of old. His partner had a hand free. He kept up the patter to cover the sound of Kuryakin slinking under the table, and was soon rewarded with nimble fingers working away at his wrist restraints. As the second strap was sliding away from his hand, the door swung open again.

Angelique led the way, a small jar of what appeared to be talcum powder balanced carefully in her well-manicured hands. As she and her small entourage of thugs came in clear sight of their intended victims, they noticed two things simultaneously. One of the victims had apparently vanished, and the other one wasn't nearly as tied up as he was supposed to be.

Before Angelique had a chance to order the attack, reflexes sprang into action on the thugs' part, with unfortunate effects for all concerned. One thug went for Napoleon, only to get caught in the ribs with a rapidly freed foot. The second thug was caught by a side-swept foot from the hidden UNCLE agent under the table. He rolled with the kick, attempted to compensate for his new position, and ended up wrapped in Kuryakin's arms, not a pleasant place to be when Kuryakin was fighting for his life. Solo finally got his other foot free, just in time to take up the cudgels with the first thug. As the four men thrashed, jolted and wrestled all around her, Angelique performed a strange sort of dance, yelping, screaming orders and warnings, and growling at the same time that she was juggling the jar of powder, desperately trying to keep it safe.

The fight ended as quickly as it began, with one thug careening into Angelique, knocking her over and out as Kuryakin finally shook him off, the other thug tipping headfirst over the table as Solo finally threw him off, the lid flying off the jar in the fracas and powder dumping in a dense cloud over both UNCLE agents, and an escape that was marred only by the fact that the escapees resembled nothing so much as a couple of bakers who had been in a food fight over the bread mixer.

The citizens of the streets of New York barely blinked.

 

_ACT TWO : Truth be told …_

It took a decadently long shower and three shampooings before Illya felt like he was clean. The fine grained powder had gotten all over everything, but most of it had dropped off in their precipitous flight, and by the time they got to UNCLE headquarters for the lab boys to take samples, there hadn't been much to scrape off and put on the slides. Adding insult to injury, the technicians complained that what they had managed to slough off into the test tubes was contaminated with such inconvenient substances as sweat and blood, and hadn't they managed to maintain purity in ANY of it so UNCLE would have a decent sample to analyze? Manfully biting back any number of retorts about keeping the chemicals clean the next time he was fighting off THRUSH enforcers the size of tanks, he had exchanged one meaningful glance with Solo and gone home to sleep.

Now that the night was gone, and he'd managed to get some rest, he didn't feel any more the worse for the wear than he usually did after a sortie with THRUSH. Muscular aches, a joint ache or two, a mild headache, some fuzziness in his thoughts that could no doubt be chalked up to too little sleep and too many thumps the night before. And his nose was slightly sore. Angelique hadn't had to bite down quite so hard when she'd nipped him, but then he'd always known she was a carnivore. Now maybe when he told Napoleon she was a man-eater his partner would listen to him.

By the time he got through the tailor's closet and into main headquarters, headed for Mr. Waverly's office, he felt much better. In fact, he felt very good indeed, in a better mood than he had been for some time. Unable to pinpoint the reason for his unusual good cheer, he ignored it for the moment and started into the room. With one hand on the knob, he paused, listening intently. Something very odd was going on in there.

For one thing, Napoleon was both whining and giggling.

Not unexpectedly, Mr. Waverly was doing neither.

Peering around the edge of the door, he was startled to see his boss standing in the middle of the floor, eyes popping, pipe hanging loosely from his hand, looking rather as if he'd been pole-axed. Napoleon perched on the edge of the table, hands flying, mouth flying faster, eyes bright with mirth. He was bubbling over about something in Paris, or perhaps Persia, it was hard to tell exactly. Illya shook his head to clear it of some of the annoying fuzziness, and slipped into the room. Waverly didn't notice, all his attention fixed on his primary agent, for all the world as if he expected the young man to explode at any moment.

"It's not as if they give us any credit. Every time I turn around we're rescuing someone's fat from the fire. But do we get so much as a thank you? No! I have Sicilians trying to marry me off, hit men trying to kill me off, THRUSH muscle trying to beat me off … up … whatever, maniacs trying to bump me off, and every chance they get they tie me up! And what do I get from you? Of course you're feeling better, Mr. Solo, now go out and save the world again. And fly economy while you're at it. You’re getting spoiled, needing that extra seat for the full body cast, surely they can put joints in it, it's only a ten hour flight.

"What do you mean you need a new suit? UNCLE paid for three entire suits last year, never mind that I lose an average of one entire suit every month between idiots trying to feed me to crocodiles and blast me away in wind tunnels and dump me out of airplanes. And do I get any sympathy? Ha! Kill this one, bed this one, lie to this one, eat Illya's cooking, steal from this one, impersonate this one, don't worry about that close escape, there are three more scrapes for you to settle as of yesterday! And where is that paperwork?

"I've been injected with things no human should have swimming around in his bloodstream, talked my way out of and into situations no sane person would come anywhere near, flirted with every breathing female body in the western hemisphere and gotten lucky much less often than one would suppose or I would prefer. And what's the word I get? Keep going, Mr. Solo, wind him up and let him loose, he's virtually indestructible and after all, if we lose a few spare parts, there's still enough of him to go around. Deserts, boxes, dumpsters, sewers, towers, submarines, flying saucers …

"And the water! Every time I turn around, someone's dumping me in water. Venice, assorted South Pacific Islands, even in the middle of the desert they'll find an oasis and dump me on my butt in the water. I do NOT look good spouting water like a seal. Not to mention what it does to my wardrobe! Silk never recovers from it, and wool stretches right out of shape. And I never get enough back on my expense reports to cover the damages. I have a reputation to keep up!"

Illya opened his mouth to say … something … anything … to end the harangue before Mr. Waverly stopped turning puce and actually shot his number one agent (if only to shut him up). Unhappily, his tongue started working before his brain could catch up. "Yes, and we all know what that is. Truth be told, Napoleon, I don't know why you worry about your suits, when you don't keep the zippers up and the trousers covering you long enough to know you even put them on." His hand clapped over his mouth instinctively. Where on earth had that come from?

Napoleon rounded on him so quickly he nearly lost his balance and came tumbling off his precarious perch on the table edge. "How would you know? You might as well not even have zippers for all the good you put them to!"

"When would I have time?" Illya's mouth was moving, and words were coming out, but for the life of him he couldn't tell where they were coming from. And he couldn't get them to stop. It was embarrassing. "You talk about the water and the deserts and the boxes, but who is it who always ends up doing the dirty work? Fixing the engines, baiting the bullies, crawling about in the bushes, being dragged through the mud, swimming through those sewers? Twisting like a pretzel to get out of ropes while tied upside down from meat hooks, climbing more drainage pipes than a city rat? While you're off playing Don Juan, I'm out in the rain getting my nose bitten!"

Completely out of breath, Illya stopped and stared at his partner. Napoleon stared back, then grinned widely. "She likes you."

"She's insane."

"Because she likes you?"

"No, because she sleeps with you."

Before it could degenerate any further, Mr. Waverly finally found his voice. "Gentlemen!" he thundered, casting them both a thoroughly disgusted look. "What on earth is the matter with the two of you?"

"My head hurts."

"My nose hurts."

"I tore my pants on that stupid table."

"I didn't sleep at all well last night."

"I can't seem to stop talking."

"My eyes are still clogged with dust, even after showering until I ran completely out of hot water, which is a ridiculous waste and I never do that, but I did this morning."

"And nothing I'm saying makes any sense -- well, it all makes sense -- a great deal of sense actually -- but I certainly would never SAY it-- out loud, anyway --"

Their voices flowed out, overlapping one another, and Mr. Waverly stared back and forth between them like an observer at a manic tennis match. One of Kuryakin's words seemed to click, and Mr. Waverly straightened and pinned the young man with a glare. He raised a hand to halt the torrent of complaints, but before he said a word he noticed the rapt and increasing audience at the wide-open doorway. Stalking between his still-complaining agents, he gently but firmly slammed the door on several disappointed faces. By the time he'd returned to his seat, his top team had finally run out of steam and were staring at one another in dismay and disbelief.

"This, er, discussion has brought to light a number of interesting points, but the foremost in my mind is the mention you make of the dust, Mr. Kuryakin."

"Of course it wouldn't be the suits," Napoleon inserted irrepressibly before Waverly and Kuryakin's combined glares shut him up again.

"It would appear that there are some unexpected side effects from your dousing in powder last evening, gentlemen. You are to report to Medical immediately and be completely tested." He waved them to the door, settling into his chair. Illya's last glimpse of his employer before he shut the door behind them was of a pensive lion, staring into his pipe. He was not to know that Mr. Waverly only managed to hold the pose long enough for the latch to click before he laughed himself half sick.

Illya was too busy biting his tongue, rubbing his nose, and plowing through the crowd in his partner's wake. Napoleon had also gotten somewhat of a guard on his tongue, but muttered imprecations about looky-lous and nothing better to do and he could too keep his zipper up could be heard floating on the air in an undertone.

Behind them, the rumors began to fly.

By mid-day, the secretarial pool had managed to convince themselves that Solo and Kuryakin had been replaced by moles. Why, when that divine Mr. Solo had returned from just hours in the medical labs, he hadn't flirted with a one of them. Surely that showed right there that he couldn't possibly be the real Mr. Solo? And he wasn't sick or the doctors wouldn't have let him go.

The entire communications section had come to the conclusion that the number one agent at UNCLE New York had lost his mind, having been privy to the truly bizarre session to which Solo had subjected Mr. Waverly that morning. As for Kuryakin, Mr. Stoic never complained, ever, even with broken bones and massive blood loss, so the whining he'd done about getting dirty and having his nose bitten showed that he, too, had fallen right over the edge.

Intelligence section were all for it being a set-up, a triple think operation designed to promote confusion in the ranks of UNCLE, but after tossing increasingly far-fetched scenarios around until even they couldn't figure out where they were coming from, they gave it up as a bad deal and did what all intelligence officers inevitably do … sat back to wait and see what happened, so they could nod wisely and say they knew it would happen all along.

The personnel section sent a nicely worded reminder to Mr. Waverly about the length of time it had been since Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin had taken vacation, being firmly convinced that the stress was finally getting to the men, and Security agents looked nervously at one another and hoped like hell they wouldn't have to subdue either one of them. Altogether it was a busy little grapevine at UNCLE headquarters all day long.

One particular pair of beady eyes and sharp ears gathered all the grapes up, stomped out a lovely batch of home-made wine from them, and took the bottle home to his masters. THRUSH was very happy with this particular vintage.

 

_ACT THREE : Wham, Bam, Thank you … Sir?         _

In the solitary splendor of his office, Alexander Waverly finally subsided from muffled howls to weak chuckles, and immediately began to plot how to use the recent unusual events to his (his being UNCLE's) advantage. Pulling a series of folders from a locked cabinet drawer, he began flipping through them. Every once in awhile a satisfied whuff of air signified that he had found what he was looking for, and the folder would join a small, select pile on the corner of his desk.

Three hours later, as Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo were finally being allowed to dress and leave the avid clutches of the doctors down in the Medical section, he had narrowed his search down considerably. Staring along the line of papers, one narrow forefinger pausing often to tap a line, trace another, he grunted softly in satisfaction.

There was indeed a pattern. It began some time before, ran in a twisted, faint trail through several sections' work and multiple operations, and peaked at times of highest THRUSH activity. It had coincided with the loss of some key personnel, and the unexpected failure or too-narrow success of an UNCLE operation. The conclusion was inescapable.

There was a mole in UNCLE.

And he knew just the men to flush it out.

Tamping fresh tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, he puffed determinedly for a few moments, eyes losing focus as he looked past the surface of his paper-strewn desk into a maze of plans and counter contingencies. He could pull it off. They could pull it off.

If they'd just stop talking long enough to listen.

Hands absently sorting and tidying the papers, he began to weave a plan. A quick call down to Medical assured him that his pest control agents were up for the job. A runner was sent, and less than two minutes later a pair of harried, wide eyed, tense about the mouth agents presented themselves to him like errant schoolboys approaching the headmaster.

"Ah, gentlemen. Have a seat."

They did, gingerly, not looking at one another. For a moment he wondered what tests might make them sit so lightly, then decided it was better not to know. Passing them each a single sheet of paper, he gave them a moment to digest the contents before seating himself and addressing them.

"We have as yet been unable to ascertain precisely what the chemical composition of the powder was, or its intended effect. We shall play upon your demonstrated lack of inhibition, then, stage a small act and see if our little rodent bites. Then we shall follow the trail of information and see where it may lead."

"Are you serious? Sir?" Obviously, Solo was still having a problem with tact. Waverly ignored the rampant disbelief in the question and nodded once.

"Quite serious, Mr. Solo. Mr. Kuryakin. I trust you two will be able to handle this particular assignment?"

"Menya tashneet." Kuryakin actually looked rather ill, too.

"Suck it up and live with it, tovarisch." Solo wasn't the least sympathetic. "If I can do it so can you."

"Zipless wonder," Kuryakin muttered under his breath. His partner started to rise and head toward him, but Waverly employed his seldom used 'command voice' and stopped the little spat before it developed into something larger and diverted them all from his purpose.

"Save it for the cameras, gentlemen." He gestured at the papers in their hands, then pointed toward the table top incinerator with the stem of his pipe. "Thank you."

They fed the instructions to the fire, and slowly headed out of the office. Waverly watched them go, content to leave the precise manner of the entrapment to his agents. They were highly imaginative fellows, after all, and he was certain they would come up with something … noteworthy … to spill for the mole to eagerly snatch up. Humming softly to himself, he turned his mind to the recent troubles in Cuba, and let nature take its course.

Solo and Kuryakin were silent all the way to the lab. Napoleon had started to head for his office, but his partner ignored him and kept going straight ahead, so he'd shrugged and gone along for the ride. There was a certain Russian stubbornness that manifested itself at times in Illya, and he'd long ago learned that those were the times when it was best to give in gracefully.

A very few moments later they were inside the quiet, deserted lab where Kuryakin spent all his time when he wasn't in the field. Solo propped himself up against a handy counter and watched his friend pace, eight steps up, whirl, eight steps back, whirl, and repeat the maneuver. He looked like a cornered cat, once again, and on a flight of whimsy Solo wondered where all the feline comparisons were coming from. Maybe it was the hair. Or the hunched over shoulders, and the narrowed eyes, and the fierce little frown. Maybe it was the controlled fury in the swing of those narrow hips … tearing his eyes away with sheer force of will, he cleared his throat. Might as well plunge in feet first and see what happened next.

Kuryakin reacted to the semi-verbal cue with a quick look around the lab. There were no overt signs of anyone spying on them, but that, of course, meant nothing. Solo nodded to him, his signal to start the action, and he stilled, staring up at his slightly taller partner. What to say, what to say … how to convince THRUSH the powder, whatever it might be, had done its job, and the UNCLE agents were now somewhere in cloud cuckoo land … Before he could formulate a decent opening strategy, Solo jumped in and pre-empted him.

"Zipless? Zipless? Since when have my sexual habits been any of your concern?" The slightly disdainful tone set all his hackles on end.

"Since I've been the one getting pounded into the pavement, or the mud, or the sludge, while you sit in the back seat of the car and snuggle with all the beautiful women, that's when! And that's all the time. Face it, Napoleon, you have the self control of a rutting tom cat and you are continually on the prowl."

"And this is a problem?" Sincere disbelief.

Illya gritted his teeth. "It can be, yes. But then, you'd never know, because any time it might be a problem you've got your head buried in some woman's lap and miss everything going on around you. Not to mention the number of times trouble could have been avoided if you hadn't gone out of your way to attract it!"

"What do you mean by that snide little crack?" Tempers were wearing thin on both sides, and any normal control they usually had (in abundance) was notable by its complete absence.

"Angelique." Kuryakin pushed a world of disgust into three syllables.

"You're just jealous." True, it was juvenile, but Napoleon was getting distracted. It seemed to be heating up in the room. Even Illya the Iceberg was starting to break out in a light sweat.

"Of that black widow? Why would I want to have anything to do with a carnivore who kills her mates? I have better things to do with my time."

"Like what? Hide out here in your lab? You're a man, not a robot, Illya, and you should remember that once in awhile!"

Illya growled. It took him by such surprise he stopped even breathing for a moment, but then he realized it felt so good he did it again. Napoleon was staring at him in shock, never having heard such an odd sound coming from his usually unflappable partner. Just for effect, Illya growled again, deeper this time, low in his chest. A dim voice in the back of his mind reminded him that, if he was attempting to convince an observer that he had lost his mind, this was a good way to do it, but most of his higher reasoning had shut down, and he was operating on instinct. Unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of practice using any instincts other than flight or fight, so any attempt at controlling the baser ones was doomed to failure from the outset.

By this time, he was growling continuously, with each exhalation, much like a large cat purring, and Napoleon had lost the shocked look in favor of bemused fascination. Illya decided that such a look sat very well on the American, as it took something truly unique to render Solo both speechless and fascinated. Of course, he wasn't to know that Solo had never seen his partner sweaty, growling, out of control and advancing on him, and was in the throes of a rapid re-evaluation of his own sexual orientation and bounds of acceptable experimentation. While the internal debate was still raging, Illya tossed all caution to the winds and pounced. He didn't really have a plan for what would happen post-pounce; it just felt like the thing to do at the time.

Solo instinctively reacted defensively to suddenly finding himself with an armful of Kuryakin, but they had wrestled and trained with one another long enough that no real harm was done. Instead, he twisted, Illya followed the movement, several rows of test tubes and a microscope were sacrificed to the concrete floor, and Kuryakin found himself on his hands and knees, pinning his supine partner to the table, arms and legs akimbo, head thrown back, eyes wide as saucers.

"Now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?" Re-evaluation complete, Solo had come to the conclusion that if it felt good, he was all for it, and this felt very good indeed. Illya stared down at him.

"Damned if I know," he answered with typical blunt honesty.

"I have a few suggestions," Napoleon offered, and with a quick tumble and a quicker save to compensate for the narrowness of the counter, their positions were reversed.

It had been a long time since Illya Kuryakin had found himself in this position. The last time it happened, he was still a youngster serving on a ship in the Baltic. He'd decided then that it would be a cold day in hell before it happened again. As his shirt and undershirt were efficiently stripped from him, followed by his belt, then a skilled hand tugged at his zipper, he spared one last clear thought for the current temperature in Purgatory.

Then trousers and briefs made the journey south to tangle around his ankles, long fingers curled around his quite interested penis, and all rational thought seeped out of his ears as his brain melted. Absently, he parted his lips, meaning to protest, or question, or at least take a deep breath to scream in pure unadulterated ecstasy. Halfway into the inhalation Napoleon thwarted his efforts by the simple expedient of closing his own mouth around Illya's.

It felt so good he forgot about screaming. Protesting was completely out of the question.

He was invaded, over-run, conquered and utterly subjugated without so much as a token struggle. So much for virtue unassailable. From the sounds Napoleon was making and the enthusiastic hand working at him, the tom cat was a real swinger, because there wasn't so much as a pause for reflection. Illya was vaguely aware that his wandering hands had clamped around Napoleon's hips and were drawing them together, as his own hips thrust himself into the steel band of his partner's fist, but it was so unexpected, and so intense, that it was all over much too quickly. With a soft sigh of completion, he bucked one last time, arched, and shuddered against Solo.

Prying open eyes he didn't remember shutting, he was treated to the sight of Napoleon Solo licking semen off his fingers with an inquisitive tongue. That's when he realized that he was still hard, because the jolt of arousal went like a bolt of lightning directly from his eyes to his groin. His hands were still clamped around Napoleon's buttocks, and he realized with a shock that while he was very nearly naked, Solo was still completely dressed … he hadn't even loosened the knot in his tie.

Illya felt … wanton. Not a self-image with which he was particularly familiar. Determined to level the playing field, he forced his mind off all the mental visions of what he'd like to do with his erection, and concentrated on getting his partner into an equal state of undress as himself. They nearly rolled off the counter twice before he lost his patience, pulled Napoleon upright, propped him back against the counter and stripped him off. What he found made his mouth water.

Solo was a big boy. Everywhere.

He was on his knees without making a conscious decision, swallowing as much as he could on the first gulp. There was a satisfying shiver along the entire frame under his hands, and the cock in his mouth pulsed twice. It liked the attention, so he gave it more. Several long moments of sheer oral bliss later, he realized that the hands tangled in his hair weren't guiding him any more, they were doing their best to pull him off. Looking up into his partner's face, Illya was impressed with the control he saw. It was hanging by threads, but it was there. Allowing himself to be pulled away, he asked, quietly, "Yes? No? Tell me what you want, Napasha."

"A taste," came back to him through gritted teeth. The threads were fraying quickly.

He pulled himself to his feet by the simple expedient of climbing up Solo's body, so that by the time they were face to face the tenuous hold the other man had on his restraint was nearly gone. Illya found himself tossed up to sit on the cold counter, and he reacted by pushing his buttocks away from the chilly tile. This resulted in his thrusting his erection directly up into Napoleon's lowering mouth, a satisfactory arrangement for both men. Illya was caught between strong hands and devouring face, writhing between the two as Solo did his best to suck his soul out of his body. By the time he came for the second time, he was so sated he slipped right off the counter into his friend's arms.

Napoleon took advantage of his utter relaxation to turn him around, bend him over the counter, slide down his legs and kiss him in a place Illya seldom touched himself. The first touch of tongue and teeth would have shocked him rigid, if he'd had any adrenaline left after two stunning climaxes. As it was, the most he could manage was a ringing … endorsement. The "What are you doing?" somehow translated to "Dear God, Napasha, yes, more, please!"

Perhaps the white powder worked on the language portion of the brain, making one say any manner of things one never expected to say. Before his brain could get too diverted into the possibilities of chemical mutability in the brain, Napoleon slid his tongue out of him and his fingers into him, and the endorsement was repeated, with flourishes. By the time the fingers finally left and a thick cock took their place, words had degenerated into panted moans and incoherent whimpers. He couldn't quite manage another erection, but he didn't care -- he was riding into heaven on a rail, and he never wanted it to end.

Of course, Solo had been waiting longer than Kuryakin had, was an orgasm behind in the count, and was more highly sexed, so it didn't last as long as either man would have hoped. It did make up in intensity for what it lacked in duration, however.

Finally collapsing over the counter, the edge digging into his belly as he was half smothered under Napoleon's weight, Illya wondered if he had, indeed, gone insane. Trying to think of a way to phrase the question that wouldn't sound utterly ridiculous in their present circumstances, he was distracted by the sensation of loss as his lover slipped from his body and slid down his back. Straightening up with some difficulty, he peered over his shoulder to see Solo, looking like a truck had run over him, staring back up at him. Acknowledging the humor and disbelief in the look with a slight smile, he shrugged, extricated himself from the now-limp embrace Solo had on his knees, and reached for his trousers.

As he leaned past his partner to rescue his hopelessly wrinkled shirt, Napoleon whispered, "If that doesn't stir up the hornets, nothing will."

He couldn't stop the grin at that, but contented himself with silently handing Napoleon his pants.

 

 _ACT FOUR : Maybe, Maybe Not._

 Mr. Waverly didn't ask what his agents had done to set the grapevine a-twitter, and the gentlemen didn't offer. Of course, he knew, since he had ears in the walls, and eyes in the curtains, but he was of an era where such things were not actually verbalized, and he preferred to leave it that way.

He did have a recovered sample of the powder sterilized and delivered to his apartment, but that's another story altogether.

All the activity had precisely the effects he had intended (along with a few he hadn't expected but was steadfastly ignoring). Happily, things moved quickly, before the secretarial pool could arrange a lynching for either man, depending on their own preferences for blond or brunet, or a viewing, depending on their individual levels of voyeurism. Within the hour, a certain security camera was taken off-line for a moment, causing a particular red light to flash in Mr. Waverly's office. Solo and Kuryakin, along with a hand-picked squad of six, were immediately deployed to observe and trace.

A palm-sized film canister moved from a private office connected to the labs, to a side entrance of the tailor's shop, to a certain white Corvette, to an easily recognized individual whose appearance caused at least one member of the team to stifle a growl. Another member of the team heard the growl and stamped down on a reactive frisson of pleasure. A new signal was added to the repertoire shared by the top UNCLE team, without a word being spoken between the partners.

The Corvette led the way for the uninvited entourage to a high rise apartment building in the heart of Manhattan. One would think that after losing one satrap in the neighborhood, THRUSH would have known better, but they didn't learn well from their mistakes. There were no life sized killer zombie women to come after them, but there was a detachment of THRUSH thugs to get in their way. It was a brief, bloody, loud, and lively rumble. Illya came in low, Napoleon came in high, the back up troops came in from all sides, and it was a rout, in UNCLE's favor. They caught up with Angelique just as she was developing the film.

Staring at the dead and wounded bodies lying along the hallway, squinting briefly up at the bright overhead light that was obliterating what had promised to be an erotic and highly effective tool for blackmail, and sighing wistfully for what Might Have Been, she swung a fist, knocked the pan of chemicals into the oncoming UNCLE invaders, and slipped out the hidden back entrance. By the time the tangle of men had sorted themselves out and shaken the solution out of their faces, she was long gone.

But the film remained, ruined and useless, and the mole was trapped.

Back at UNCLE headquarters New York, one Vincent Soeldt, second assistant section head for research and development, was unaware that his real masters were currently being invaded. Mr. Waverly watched on the internal security cameras as agents from Section Six, Security and Personnel, arranged for the permanent retirement of the erstwhile double agent. It was a sad and disappointing day for Mr. Waverly. Traitors were an occupational hazard, but seldom did someone with thirty years on the job turn out to be the worm in the heart of the apple. Thankfully. His somber thoughts were interrupted by the chirp of the communicator.

"Open Channel D." Mr. Solo sounded tired. Not surprising, considering the day's activities. Mr. Waverly ignored that improper thought as well and concentrated on the matter at hand.

"Here. Report, Mr. Solo."

"All secured on this end, sir. One escaped, but we know where she lives --"

"Sleeps." They both ignored the sotto voce comment in the background. Mr. Waverly did note that Mr. Kuryakin sounded worn as well.

"-and she won't go far."

"She never does," the disgruntled voice added.

"From the sound of things, the effects of your unfortunate encounter-" he ignored the assorted snorts and stammerings his wording provoked, "-are still noticeable. Go home, both of you, and sleep it off." He raised one brow at the stifled laughter that met his command, and simply said, "Mr. Slate can make the report." Thumbing off the microphone before any further double entendres could be extracted from his words, he sat back in his chair with a sigh. Reaching for another switch, he began to listen in on what was buzzing through his headquarters.

Bets were being taken in Intelligence on how long it would last before Solo got bored and/or Kuryakin killed him. Four secretaries were crying together in the bathroom, over Mr. Kuryakin, surprisingly enough given their respective reputations. The rest of the secretarial pool was evenly split between wondering how long it had taken the Ice Prince to melt and making guesses at how long the Great Seducer had taken no for an answer. Security was simply relieved not to have to try to lock them up, and two of the upper level enforcers were wondering aloud when Kuryakin might be back on the market. Opinion was evenly divided between the idea that the whole thing had been a set-up to catch Soeldt, that the sex had never actually happened, that of course Solo and Kuryakin were lovers and had been for ages, that Mr. Waverly had ordered them to do it, and that it was all a THRUSH plot to put UNCLE headquarters in a tizzy so they could sneak in while UNCLE wasn't looking and take over Cuba.

Mr. Waverly smiled to himself. By next week, they'd all be convinced that none of it happened, everything was going along as usual, and it was all a master plot to catch a spy, and his reputation would grow another notch brighter. It was good to be king.

 

 _EPILOGUE : _

 Cocooned tightly around one another, skin slipping together with a mixture of bodily fluids that made a mess of the sheets and put giddy smiles on both their faces, Illya and Napoleon cuddled sleepily and stared up at the handkerchief tacked securely to the wall.

"I never knew there was a camera in your bedroom, Napasha." Illya's voice was sleepy, rich with satiation, replete with satisfaction. If he were indeed a cat, his whiskers would have been dripping with cream. As it was, there were some suspicious traces of white around his lips, but they were much too salty for the average traditional cat. It didn't appear to bother him in the least.

"You've never been in my bedroom, Illyushka," Napoleon reminded him.

"It's better than the lab counter," Illya conceded with satisfaction, patting his partner's chest before laying his head down on the human pillow to get some much needed rest. As he gradually fell asleep, he could hear Napoleon listing all the different places they were going to have to test before his curiosity would be satisfied.

He took comfort in the fact that it was a very long list.

_finis_

Overheard in a satrap somewhere in Lower Manhattan:

"Not again."

"Again. What do you have to complain about? At least you can move."

"Three inches. Forward and back. Head only."

"When do you think they'll be back?"

"Not before morning."

"Three inches, hm?" Rock. Shake. Groan. Zip. Smothered oath.

"Plenty."

"Smartass Russian."

 

 


End file.
